


Swear Not to Smile

by actualgarbage



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Body Paint, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Tumblr Prompt, grounder ceremony, that OBVIOUSLY requires limited clothing and body paint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 13:49:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3571961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualgarbage/pseuds/actualgarbage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Just-” he sighs again and feels his fight beginning to weaken just a little. “Just remind me again. The paint’s supposed to go where?”<br/>Clarke does laugh at him then, but only of a few seconds because the dejected expression he’s got makes him look so much like a wounded puppy that it’s hard to see how funny the situation is.<br/>She can see over Bellamy’s shoulder that Raven, on the other hand, is doing everything she can just to keep herself from rolling on the floor. Octavia’s not holding it together much better as she stands next to Raven, gripping her sides and silently losing it.<br/>“I’ve already told you a million times. It’s a grounder tradition that the leaders of the clans and their seconds wear body paint on their chests instead of armor to the annual feast. It shows trust through vulnerability or something.”<br/>19:The paint’s supposed to go where?<br/>40:Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swear Not to Smile

**Author's Note:**

> Wow okay so I haven't updated (or even worked on) any of the other things I keep promising to write because I have a short attention span but I SWEAR I'll get to them eventually. In the meantime I hope you enjoy whatever this is because it was fun to write.

**19: “The paint’s supposed to go _where_?”**

**40:"Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?"**

“Bellamy would you quit...” Clarke made a vague gesture with her hands. “Whatever this is? We have to get going.”

Bellamy frowned. He was not, contrary to popular belief, being a lame ass (as Octavia had so gracefully put it). No. He was being a sensible and completely rational person about this.

He let out a huff of exasperation. 

“Fine.” His tone was clipped and Clarke rolled her eyes at him before she turned to leave but before she could his arm shot out and grabbed hers, turning her back around to face him. She did her best not to laugh at the tentative and childlike terror that covered his face and looked him in the eyes.

“Just-” he sighs again and feels his fight beginning to weaken just a little. “Just remind me again. The paint’s supposed to go  _where_?”

Clarke does laugh at him then, but only of a few seconds because the dejected expression he’s got makes him look so much like a wounded puppy that it’s hard to see how funny the situation is.

She can see over Bellamy’s shoulder that Raven, on the other hand, is doing everything she can just to keep herself from rolling on the floor. Octavia’s not holding it together much better as she stands next to Raven, gripping her sides and silently losing it.

“I’ve already told you a million times. It’s a grounder tradition that the leaders of the clans and their seconds wear body paint on their chests instead of armor to the annual feast. It shows trust through vulnerability or something.”

He nods in resignation then and lets her drag him out of one of the Skai-Kru tents that’s been temporarily set up in TonDC during the festivals. Bellamy has heard the explanation at least 15 times already but he’s still not very happy about it. They reach an empty tent and before he’s halfway in the door Clarke is ripping her shirt off over her head and throwing it on a table beside her.

Without even turning around (he’s glad she didn’t so he could stop staring and wipe the smitten gape off his face in time for a smooth recovery) she points to another table on the other side of the tent identical to the one she’s next to. They’re both covered in jars of paint.

He goes where she’s pointing him (he always does) and starts taking off his own shirt and trying not to grumble. After he’s folded his shirt neatly because he is _not a neanderthal_ and he can feel Clarke’s gaze in the muscles on his back he has to take a second to compose himself because this is not how he had planned them to be taking off their clothes in front of one another and he’s a little bit pissed about that on top of the body paint.

But while he’s thinking about that it also occurs to him that there aren’t any paintbrushes, which, weird. How are you supposed to-

oh. That’s why he can feel Clarke’s eyes on his back so expectantly and Bellamy is suddenly feeling the need to shout at the sky and ask somebody what the hell he’s done in the year they’ve been on earth to deserve this (he wouldn’t want an answer, obviously, because God knows he’s done enough, but it’s the kind of rhetorical thing someone does when they’re being over-dramatic, right?).

But when he turns around Clarke is looking at him with those stupid eyes again and he knows he has no choice if she has anything to do with it. She’s holding one of the jars and her face is attempting to be stern.

“So do you want to go first or should I?”

“Paint me up, Princess,” he tries to sound as annoyed as he can and even brings up the old nickname he had for her.

It only succeeds in earning him a heat-less glare from Clarke as she takes a few steps closer to him. It takes everything he’s got to stay relaxed with her standing so close and he hoped maintain some semblance of sanity- even though she’s barely clothed and it’s driving him beyond crazy.

She motions for him to turn around and so he does and he lets out another huff of irritation because he’s still pretending he doesn’t want her hands drawing delicate patterns over his shoulder blades and down his spine.

Clarke reaches out then and touches him right where his shoulder meets his neck and he swears he tried not to flinch but he can only put so much energy into this whole ruse and she caught him off guard. He hears her snickering a little bit behind him.

“The paint is cold,” Bellamy gruffly murmurs, feeling some irrational need to explain himself to her.

“Sure,” she says in a tone that he can’t really pinpoint but he’s pretty sure she’s still laughing at him when she puts her hands back on him and starts swirling designs lazily over his muscles. She traces his spine and he’s pretty sure she’s drawn some flowers on his back but he can’t bring himself to be angry about it because she’s basically giving him a massage and tension he didn’t even know he had was slowly leaving him. And it felt damn good.

By the time he felt her start to finish off some of the details with tiny dots placed with her pinky, he remembers that he’s supposed to be pissed about this and manages to put that face on again before she moves around to work on the front of his chest. Bellamy glares at the wall of the structure they’re in and tries to focus on the techniques the grounders use for building so he doesn’t have to think about Clarke- which is much easier in practice than in theory. It would be much easier to ignore her if she hadn’t been at the front of his mind for  _months_  now- even before she left and came back ( _to him_ , he thinks).

So he keeps doing his best to leave a scowl on his face and he’s doing just about everything to stop himself from just grinning like a love-struck idiot (which he can’t deny that he is) because he’s pretty sure she has no idea that she’s the godamn  _sun_ and Jesus Christ the way she’s dragging her fingers over his chest is so not fair.

Then her hair comes untucked from behind her ear and brushes against his arm and he just  _has_  to look down right as she looks up at him with a quick “sorry,” and moves her hand up to sweep the hair out of her eyes. 

Clarke, however, seems to have momentarily forgotten that her hands are covered in paint and the action leaves a streak on her cheek and I mean really it would be rude for him  _not_  to say something, right? Especially when they’re still making eye contact and  _wow_  he’s a goner.

“Clarke, uh, you’ve got-” he points to his own cheek where the paint is on hers.

Her face registers surprise at first but then she breaks eye contact to glance at her hands. Instead of fixing it, though, she just gets this big grin on her face and Bellamy is starting to get even more nervous (as if the fact that the woman he’s pretty sure he’s halfway in love with without her even knowing isn’t already standing too close to him wearing hardly anything and dragging her hands all over him). 

Her eyebrow quirks up in an almost challenging way and she stares at him for a few more seconds just for good measure (and to watch him squirm because he doesn’t know what that face means in this context).

Bellamy might stop breathing for a second.

Clarke might get a little bit smug about how nervous he looks.

Then her hand shoots up to his face and she smears a dot of paint on the tip of his nose.

His jaw drops and he thinks that he really should have seen it coming, but he didn’t (he never saw Clarke coming, either, and he thinks she’d been surprising him ever since day one).

And god, he just can’t help it that the shock is slipping off his face without him realizing it because next thing you know he’s smiling at her  _while she’s actually looking at him_ and he can’t seem to make it go away.

"Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?"  she shoots at him with a thrilled tone.

_Damn his stupid facial muscles because they won’t go back to normal, either._

She’s beaming right back at him now and he never wants to stop seeing that smile for a second.

“Clarke, you know I’d do anything for you- even crack a smile every now and then.” He wishes he were lying when he says anything, but they’ve both known it’s been true for too long.

“Well you should do it more often, then. It’s a good look on you.” She almost whispers her reply and part of him thinks maybe she’s as nervous as he is.

Bellamy doesn’t move an inch and he just keeps staring at her because there’s no way anyone should be that beautiful.

Clarke seems to understand the way his smile has shifted into a different kind of beaming because she moves impossibly closer. She stands up on her tiptoes slowly; her eyes flickering between his own and his lips before closing the distance between them.

They kiss for about a second and a half before they’re both grinning into each other’s mouths again which is, admittedly a bit strange, but neither seems to care.

Bellamy moves to put his arms around her and bring her closer before Clarke pulls back suddenly.

“No! We’ll smear the paint!” and she’s smiling again and seems reluctant to be saying the words so he nods.

They silently agree that this is not over.

...

Later that night Bellamy finds her gaze over the bonfire and he’s smiling still. Their friends had pointed out that the designs Clarke had put on him were much prettier, but he thinks he likes the way that his hand-print covers most of her lower back, and the lines he’d traced over her collar bone. He might have gotten a knowing look about it from Raven, but he’d put the frown back on long enough to mutter something about how he wasn’t very creative and it seemed to appease her.

The paint did end up a little bit smeared (to say the least) after the ceremony, but he and Clarke didn’t mind that much.

**Author's Note:**

> So???? what did you think? I'm still pretty new at the whole fic-writing thing, so any feedback you can give me is beyond appreciated. I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm mostly just pretending I do.  
> Also I seriously promise I''l update Studio With a View soon (the next chapter is already underway), My America's Next Top Model AU is coming along slowly but surely, and I Don't but I Might will be finished eventually.  
> Bear with me, cuties.  
> XOXO


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